


alleviate

by cosmya



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Hook-Up, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Wine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:01:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23598031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmya/pseuds/cosmya
Summary: Aziraphale is, in his opinion, the onlydecentemployee of Penthouse Performance Management, and the sales conference he's forced to attend this year is the last place he wants to be. A tall, dark stranger at the hotel bar manages to change his mind.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 87





	alleviate

Aziraphale sat at the hotel bar, surrounded yet alone, staring into his half-empty glass of house white. The bartender, who had been making such kind and, dare Aziraphale say it, flirty conversation, had long since abandoned him in favor of serving the dozens of other conference attendees who filled the small space, which had been carefully designed to look hip, but not  _ too _ hip, so as to not alienate its primary clientele. 

Most of the people furnishing the bar were, strictly speaking, Aziraphale’s coworkers. That is to say, they were from Penthouse Performance Management, like he was, the world’s premiere HR consulting firm for the discerning (read: paranoid) medium-sized, tech-forward, buzzword-loving company. This did not mean that they wished to talk to him. He was fine with this, for it was the Thursday of a week-long sales conference, and if he heard the word “synergy” one more time, he would quit right then and there.

(At least, that was what he told himself.)

He sighed and took a drink. The mirror behind the bar reflected swaths of grey and white pseudo-casual suits, generally made of silk and/or cashmere, which was the style for the Penthouse employees. Clean, organized, nothing to hide. Dry-clean only. They all tended to practice what they preached. Of course, they also preached compassion, tolerance, teamwork, and a few other proprietary terms Aziraphale could never remember, and they never showed  _ him  _ any of those.

He sighed and finished the glass, gingerly placing a tenner down on the bar (he had always thought it inappropriate to use the company card to pay for alcohol, though it didn’t stop anybody else at Penthouse). Back up to the hotel room for another quiet night of raging parties upstairs and headboards knocking against walls and being kept up until three A.M. Another morning of being the only one properly awake at the keynote and not making eyes across Exhibit Hall F at Carol from the Sheffield office. 

Aziraphale stood and smoothed his own cream-colored jacket. He tried to thank the bartender, but he was busy pouring a round of jelly-donut shots for Corporate R&D. 

Keeping his head down, he pushed through the crowd, trying not to wonder whether anyone would grab his shoulder, drunkenly shout “AZIRAPHALE!!!” and force a G&T into his hand, or strike up a conversation mostly consisting of the phrase “we should totally grab drinks when we get back to London!”. The world seemed to be closing in, or maybe the better metaphor was to say that he was invisible, or that he existed in a different dimension, because nobody so much as looked at him, even when one particularly rowdy footballer-turned-Director of Sales, Southern Region stumbled back into him.

Aziraphale gasped and nearly fell back into a crowd of generic Penthousers. But the Director, whose name was Gabriel, caught his arm, pulling him upright like he was lighter than a feather. Aziraphale was given a look like he had done the whole thing on purpose for attention.

“Erm, sorry,” he said. “I’ll just be going.”

Gabriel sneered. “See you in the morning.” The other Directors gave Aziraphale similarly dirty looks.

Aziraphale smiled, trying to seem unafraid, at Gabriel, and then made his way back out towards the door. This week had been disastrous, everybody hated him, he had no future at this company, he had no future anywhere else. 

He had almost gotten his hopes up about the prospect of a few hours of tipsy HGTV before bed when he felt a hand on his shoulder. A crimson-haired stranger was holding out a very full glass of red wine. He was wearing sunglasses, though they were inside and it was nearly eleven P.M., and wore a smile that seemed obscene for such a busy place. “Have one on me,” he said, shaking the glass. Miraculously, none of it spilled.

Aziraphale tried to hide his look of surprise. “Erm - do I know you?”

“Do I work for Penthouse, you mean?  _ Definitely  _ not.” He shook the glass again. “Take it. I’m sure you need it after this week.”

“How do you - no, no thanks.”

“More for me, then,” he said nonchalantly. Actually, everything he had said could be described as such. He took a large gulp from the glass, but it didn’t seem to empty at all. “Conferences, eh?”

“What about them?” Aziraphale asked cautiously. He should be getting to bed, shouldn’t he? Not listening to this strange drunk talk at him?

The man shrugged, making his shoulder-length hair scrunch up in a way that shouldn’t have been attractive. “I’m here for one, too. None of my lot are  _ fun _ , though. They’re all probably upstairs watching the bloody Property Brothers or something. So I come down here, but none of  _ your _ lot talk to me either. They’re all best friends, I ‘spose. Only you don’t seem to be in the clique, eh?”

“Was it obvious?” Aziraphale asked icily. As soon as the words came out, though, Aziraphale felt guilty. He swallowed. “I’m Aziraphale, by the way. Good to meet you.”

“Crowley. Hacker extraordinaire.”

“Is that something you’re supposed to admit to? Isn’t hacking… illegal?” 

“Depends on who you hack.” He smiled again. “What do you do? Actually, never mind. Why are we talking about work?”

Aziraphale didn’t reply. He should be going. 

“You want to sit down?” Crowley asked, looking back at a pair of emerald velvet chairs that had just emptied. 

“Yes,” said Aziraphale, before really thinking about the consequences of that answer. He  _ hated  _ HGTV.

Crowley deposited himself breezily in one of the armchairs, slinging his legs up on the tiny golden coffee table in front of him. Aziraphale sat much more tenderly, feeling Crowley’s eyes following him; if only he could see behind those sunglasses.

“Where’re you from?” Crowley asked.

“London. Soho.”

Crowley’s eyebrows shot up past the upper ridge of the glasses. “Me  _ too _ . I thought you looked familiar.”

“We’ve met?” Aziraphale certainly would’ve remembered if he had met this character.

“Passed you on the sidewalk, maybe. So,” he said with a heavy nod, “what’re you doing working for  _ them _ ?” The way he said “them” made it sound like they were criminals, maybe, or (more appropriately for Crowley, Aziraphale presumed) simply very uncool.

Aziraphale shrugged, hoping nobody was eavesdropping. “They’re not so bad.”

Crowley gave him a hilariously exaggerated look of incredulity.

“Fine,” Aziraphale said, lowering his voice to nearly a whisper. “I thought I was going to help people. I didn’t know that it would be… like this.”

“Oh,” replied Crowley brightly. “So you’re complicit in all the, you know, the ‘performance monitoring’, the webcam surveillance, the timed bathroom breaks-”

Aziraphale tightened up. “Keep your voice down,” he urged. He saw a smile flickering on Crowley’s lips. “And no. I’m not. I... do my best to do what’s right. And you know what, I do think I’d like a drink.”

Crowley’s smile widened and he stood up and went to the bar. His black leather pants were entirely too tight and his black leather jacket… well that was too tight too, wasn’t it, and Aziraphale realized that he wasn’t thinking straight and that whatever drink Crowley was getting him would addle him even further. He had come down here after dinner for conversation, ostensibly, and to give the appearance of friendliness to his coworkers. He now realized that what he really needed was to get  _ drunk _ , and reveal far too much personal information to a complete stranger, and stop wondering what would come next. 

The truth of the matter was that Aziraphale was wound woefully tight. There were two things he knew generally worked to unwind someone. Crowley was getting him one of them already. And the other… well, it didn’t seem totally unlikely that Crowley could help him with  _ that _ too. 

He closed his eyes, and decided that he deserved this. If Crowley wanted to, of course. He certainly looked the part, and spoke it, and the way his hips had wiggled just so when he’d left to get Aziraphale’s drink kept Aziraphale thinking about what else those hips could do. Oh, and his clever mouth. And his hands, long and elegant. 

Aziraphale was out of practice, even in thought, but he would make up for it with enthusiasm twofold.

Just when he felt himself slipping away completely (he was at a work function, for goodness’s sake), he felt a hand on his shoulder, sinuous fingers spreading apart slowly on it.

His eyes shot open. Crowley was handing him a lavender fizzy concoction, which was topped with pillowy white foam and a spearmint leaf. “Fantasizing?” he asked with a sly grin.

“Erm-” Aziraphale choked, taking and nearly spilling the drink and hoping the dimming light in the bar (it was after midnight, now?) hid his blush.

Crowley collapsed deftly into the chair next to Aziraphale’s once more. “You know, for a hotel, a  _ chain _ hotel at that, they know how to make a drink.”

Aziraphale exhaled quickly, relieved Crowley hadn’t caught him imagining what his backside would look like free of those ridiculous pants. Or perhaps he  _ had _ noticed, and he was trying to play it cool, give Aziraphale an out. Anyway,  _ shouldn’t _ Aziraphale want him to know what he was thinking about? Seeing as he  _ did  _ want to see Crowley out of those pants, and the only way  _ that _ would happen was if he asked, and-

“Aren’t you going to try it?” Crowley interrupted.

“Oh. Yes, sorry.” Mortified, Aziraphale sternly commanded his brain to shut up, and took a long sip through the green and white striped paper straw. The drink was at once creamy and sharp, comforting and cooling, heaven in a glass. He hoped his face  _ did _ give him away this time, because in lieu of telling Crowley that he was a booze brainard or a libation sensation or something equally idiotic, he took another drink.

Crowley looked victorious. “So. Spreading good amongst the evil, hated by coworkers, but you have strikingly good taste. How am I so lucky?”

Aziraphale extricated himself from the straw. “Good taste?” he asked, avoiding the latter question. “Oh, I don’t know. You ordered it.”

“It was off-the-menu,” Crowley quipped dangerously. “Inspired by you.”

Aziraphale felt as if he’d taken a strong shot of something, though the drink tasted nothing of alcohol. “You don’t even know me,” he answered, taken aback.

“I feel like I do.”

Suddenly emboldened, Aziraphale smiled. “Would you like to find out? If you’re… right, or not. Erm. It’s okay if you say no. But. Erm.”

Crowley’s eyebrows shot up from behind his sunglasses and he downed the rest of his wine in several large, eager gulps. After he wiped his mouth, there was a smirk on it. “I thought you’d never ask.”

“Now?” Aziraphale stuttered. He looked around. The Penthouse party was still in full swing, and though nobody had noticed him sitting and talking with a stranger, certainly someone would see him  _ leaving  _ with said stranger, given how deliriously he stood out from the rest of the crowd. And, sure, that was  _ one _ way to gain notoriety at Penthouse, but Aziraphale no longer thought that was something he wanted. “Meet at your room? I’ll follow you out in just a minute. I need to… say goodbye.”

“Suuuuure,” Crowley drawled. “Only one problem.” He held up his hand to his mouth as if telling a great secret. “I’m not actually staying here.”

“You’re not?” asked Aziraphale.

“I’ve been doing a week-long bar crawl across town, so to speak. Haven’t met anyone, if that matters to you. Anyway. What’s your room number?”

“It’s really horribly messy. I couldn’t have guests.” This was entirely true. Aziraphale’s expectations for this trip had skirted very clear of  _ this _ sort of thing. It was only fate that it would happen when he wasn’t ready.

“I like messy,” replied Crowley, a devious wink in his voice. 

“O-oh,” Aziraphale managed to sputter. “In that case. Room 666.”

“You’re joking,” said Crowley.

Aziraphale giggled despite himself. He had said rather the same thing upon checking in. “Meet me there in ten?”

“Ciao,” said Crowley, and he left the bar with characteristic swagger, ignoring the incredulous looks from Aziraphale’s coworkers.

Aziraphale himself avoided their gaze, finishing his drink and trying not to panic. Panic? No, panicking wouldn’t help. There was a beautiful, mysterious creature heading for his room, presumably to do things Aziraphale could hardly say out loud, let alone do, and for some reason… the panic didn’t set in.

He could do this.

He left the bar, making an effort to look Gabriel in the eye and smile. Gabriel didn’t see him. 

* * *

The room was as spotless as it was going to get, which was to say it looked like a major earthquake had just taken place. Naturally, Aziraphale had fussed up the bed after housekeeping had gotten to it but before he’d left for the bar that evening; the likelihood of finding crumbs in the covers was near-guaranteed at this point. 

The rest of the room was just as bad. Aziraphale supposed that he was expected to be an overpacker on trips, given his overall demeanor and personality, and he couldn’t fight fate. His jumbo-sized, cream colored suitcase wouldn’t even come close to closing, though he’d only been able to stuff half of the belongings he’d brought on this trip inside. So the rest was strewn about. There were papers and folders and woolen cardigans and books everywhere, relic of his propensity to get cold and bored on trains, though how he thought he could finish a dozen novels in the travel time of 3 hours and 41 minutes, he didn’t know. The point was that he was prepared.

Given the time frame he’d been allotted, he was proud of his handiwork. He calmed himself with a simple thought. If Crowley couldn’t accept the state of Aziraphale’s room, then he certainly couldn’t accept the state of Aziraphale. And then they would never have to see each other again, and Aziraphale would end this endeavor one drink ahead of nil.

Or so he told himself. He was not very good at the “hookup” thing. He didn’t think it was passé to develop feelings for the subject of one’s lust. 

He sat down on the bed, still in his work clothes. (It’s not as if he’d expectantly packed lingerie amid the closet he’d brought.) He folded his hands with the affectation of patience. He emptied his mind, sort of.

The knock came shortly thereafter. If Aziraphale had to guess, ten minutes exactly from when Crowley had left him. Aziraphale swung the door open with an excited flourish.

Crowley also looked exactly the same, except for the bottle of wine he held casually at his side. “Hi,” he said, sounding cooler than he should have been allowed to.

“Do come in,” Aziraphale replied, smiling.

Crowley swept inside like he was the one staying here and Aziraphale was the visitor. Suddenly, though, he stopped - between the TV stand and the bed - tense, unsure as to where Aziraphale wanted him.

( _ Anywhere  _ was fine with him. Anywhere and everywhere he could.)

Just as suddenly, Aziraphale felt more at ease. “Oh, I’m afraid I don’t have any clean glasses. Or a corkscrew.”

“Not a problem,” said Crowley, screwing the cap off the bottle, the seal breaking with a satisfying high-pitched  _ click _ . He held it out to Aziraphale. “Cheers.”

Aziraphale heard the wavering in his voice. His smile grew. “Cheers,” he repeated, and took the bottle, taking a large swig (since when did he drink so much? since when did he trust strangers?). It was a Cabernet, obviously, cheap, dark and moody and syrupy, the kind one drinks when one wants to slow down and bask in every moment and not feel like they have to force anything.

“Thanks,” he said lamely. That was odd. He didn’t really feel like a “Thanks,” sort of person, right now. More like someone who didn’t need to say anything. Who had the charisma to be wordlessly understood. 

He chuckled a little. He knew he would never have that, but he did have Crowley, and maybe Crowley was the right person to understand him. He sat back down on the bed, motioning for Crowley to join him.

Looking grateful for it, Crowley did, though rather farther away than Aziraphale had indicated. 

“So…” he said.

Aziraphale swallowed.

“Listen,” Crowley continued; Aziraphale took another swig from the bottle. “I’d love to talk. Seriously would. But not nearly as much as I’d like to kiss you right now.”

Aziraphale swallowed again. Apparently, he had been right. 

He stood, placed the bottle on the TV stand, and sat  _ properly  _ close to Crowley, reaching up to gently take his face in his hands, and kissed him.

Crowley kissed him back, more timidly than Aziraphale had expected given how forward he’d been all night, like he was afraid of showing his own desire, but Aziraphale pressed deeply into it, trying to prove himself; a thought flickered into his mind, that they were inverses. It was shadowed but not forgotten when Crowley’s posture opened up; he slid a hand over Aziraphale’s thigh. 

A sound of pleasure escaped Aziraphale’s throat and they were  _ doing _ this, weren’t they; he suddenly felt very sober and very strong. He broke off the kiss and pushed Crowley’s chest back, swinging a leg over him, knees on either side of Crowley’s hips, sitting down upon those damned leather pants, which provided  _ zero  _ mystery as to what was happening underneath them.

Crowley smiled wickedly. The sight made Aziraphale feel like a sinner. For once in his life, this was a good thing.

He leaned over and kissed him quickly before reaching up to brush the crimson hair from his brow. He decided that he wanted nothing more than to see the stranger’s eyes. 

“May I?” he asked, stroking a thumb across the black metal sunglasses.

Crowley hesitated; Aziraphale felt the sputter of his breath beneath him stop. And then he nodded.

Aziraphale slid off the sunglasses. Underneath, he saw fear, and then he saw that fear fade. In its place came desire.

It was Crowley’s turn to reach up and knot his fingers into Aziraphale’s pale curls. They kissed again, but Aziraphale wasn’t content with that either, not after he had seen what was underneath Crowley’s first and most crucial article of deception. He reached down to the hem of Crowley’s black shirt, wrenching it up and over his head, and smoothed his hands over Crowley’s ribcage. Crowley responded by unbuttoning Aziraphale’s work trousers, which, more than anything, made Aziraphale gasp. 

They undressed each other in this hurried, somehow-not-awkward way, kissing where they could and leaving lingering gazes where they couldn’t. Aziraphale was already hard, though his focus was far more on Crowley’s cock than his own. Crowley seemed to be thinking the same.

The glow of the hotel room’s lamps reflected off the windows that Aziraphale had neglected to shroud. They were drawn to it like moths, stumbling together towards the far wall, rubbing against each other as they kissed. Crowley pushed Aziraphale up against the bare glass, biting his lip one last time before pulling away. 

Icy fingers trailed down Aziraphale’s bare middle and Crowley kneeled before him, gazing up dangerously with those fiery golden eyes before opening his mouth to stretch around Aziraphale’s cock. He sucked the tip briefly, making Aziraphale’s breath catch, then slid his tongue up and down its length, then took the whole thing inside as deeply as he could go. He looked so damned beautiful filled up like this that Aziraphale could not help but to rock into his mouth; his hands found Crowley’s messy hair and held him in place like that, so he could encroach himself further and further. If Crowley couldn’t breathe, if he was about to choke, he didn’t give Aziraphale any sign that he wished to stop.

Instead, a hand reached around Aziraphale’s ass, gripping the flesh of it with sharpened fingernails before inching to the middle. Knowing what was coming, Aziraphale couldn’t hope to keep his eyes open now, as much as he liked the sight of Crowley snaking himself around his cock (hopefully, this would not be the last time he would see that). He felt a delicate finger pushing its way towards his hole. The friction sent a shiver up his spine. But Crowley was not so impatient that he would press inside before Aziraphale was ready, when it would still hurt him. 

No, he extricated himself from Aziraphale’s cock and used those surprisingly-strong hands to take him by the hips and turn him around with just enough roughness to make Aziraphale gasp when his face hit the cold glass of the window. 

Briefly, he opened his eyes. Briefly, he was aware of his immorality. Of the fact that  _ anyone _ could see them like this. That it was deeply wrong to make random passersby intimately aware of what sins Room 666 was celebrating, and probably illegal. But all he could see were stars.

Crowley spread his ass wide, bringing him mercilessly back into his blissful reality, and began doing something Aziraphale could hardly put words to with his tongue, though what use were  _ words _ when it felt this good? He would’ve stroked himself, but the window felt like ice on his cock, and if Crowley wanted him to have that pleasure, he would have said so.

Anyway, this was enough. More than enough, actually, and Aziraphale felt his breath start to hitch as he grew closer to orgasm from Crowley’s tongue alone, but this was too  _ soon _ , he shouldn’t be the first one to come.

“Crowley,” he moaned.

Crowley’s snakelike tongue curled back into his mouth. “Yes?”

Aziraphale didn’t know how to answer, so he turned back around and pulled Crowley to his feet, kissing that damned mouth again and reaching down to take Crowley’s erection. Crowley bit his lip, making Aziraphale gasp.

“You’re being selfish,” he criticized. 

“No,” Crowley disagreed playfully. “But. I mean. If you want a turn, who am I to say no?”

A shiver coursed through Aziraphale’s gut at Crowley’s attitude, and he knelt before him and gave him what he deserved.

Crowley tasted like spilled wine and excitement; he’d been touching himself as he’d been pleasuring Aziraphale, surely. Under normal circumstances Aziraphale would’ve found this distasteful, but once the flavor had spread across his tongue, he craved more and more of it, sliding Crowley’s cock as far down his throat as he could without choking, twirling his tongue ‘round it, trying to give Crowley what he’d been given in return only  _ better _ , as if he needed to prove that his squeaky-clean appearance was only a ploy and that he was just as capable as any leather-clad lothario at giving pleasure.

And it was apparently working quite well, because Crowley was making noises that surely the whole hotel could hear, and Aziraphale couldn’t bring himself to ask him to stop, to keep it down, because the sound alone was turning him on more and more, making his cock throb harder, and unlike that selfish Crowley he wasn’t going to reach down and stroke himself,  _ no _ , he was too focused on giving, that was who he was, wasn’t it, a selfless, generous  _ angel _ , and it was Crowley who needed his blessing today-

With a strained  _ hiss _ , Crowley came down his throat, unexpected and fast, pulling out messily, leaving Aziraphale’s lips covered in milky-white sheen. He swallowed instinctively, but let the mess sully his face. He looked up reverently at Crowley. He was given a devious smile.

“Still being selfish?” he asked in a whisper.

Aziraphale couldn’t help himself from bantering back. “If this is you being selfish, I’d like to see generous.”

Crowley’s face darkened in a hiding sort of way. “Generous would be me walking away and never seeing you again.”

“How is that-”

Crowley surveyed him carefully, running his fingers through Aziraphale’s hair, down his jaw, stroking his thumb over Aziraphale’s lips, which were still coated in his spend. He brought it to his own mouth and sucked it dry. “I’ll corrupt you. More than I have already. Wouldn’t be right of me to let you ruin yourself this way.” 

“I’m not-”

“You are. I’ve done enough wrong already. Look at you.”

Aziraphale stood, refusing to let Crowley upset him, determined to be strong. “This isn’t  _ wrong _ , Crowley. If this is what you think is wrong… well, you’re wrong. You told me you felt like you knew me. Maybe you do… I won’t deny that… but I think you are mistaken about yourself. You will not  _ corrupt  _ me. Nor will I purify you.” He finished with a deep breath. This was not how he pictured his night going. He thought he would’ve come by now, for one. 

There was a change in the air. The shadow lifted, like simply saying “purify” was enough to dispel the darkness. Aziraphale looked at Crowley and when he saw sudden, ecstatic understanding in his eyes, he couldn’t deny that this change to his simple, forgettable hookup was preferable. 

A hint of a smile was on Crowley’s lips. “Are you sure you don’t wish to… try?” he asked, playful intonation returning.

“Well…” Aziraphale started. He had an idea, and it sure sounded like Crowley had the same one. “If you wish to start… repenting… for all of your bad behavior… well, I’ve been very good, and I think I’m owed something…”

Crowley’s ghost of a smile burst into a grin. He fell to his knees once more and placed his palms together at his heart solemnly. “Oh, Aziraphale, forgive me…”

“Oh, shut it,” Aziraphale interrupted, though he couldn’t help himself from a giggle. “Although once won’t be enough, I’m afraid. I’ll have to come calling once we return to London.”   


“We?”

“If you’d like it to be.”

Crowley’s face softened; the charade melted. “I want what you want,” he admitted. And then, just as quickly, the demon was back. Aziraphale wouldn’t have it any other way.


End file.
